


Ghosts

by silkinsilence



Category: Claymore
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-22 23:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4855463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkinsilence/pseuds/silkinsilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are not a name. You are a number, a symbol, and a monster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Deneve

**Author's Note:**

> Going to write a drabble for each of the seven ghosts. Originally they were each going to be around 500 words and I was going to post them as a oneshot, and then it ran away from me, so it'll be installments instead.
> 
> I never write anything in second person, and yet it seemed to be the most fitting option here. 
> 
> Feedback greatly appreciated.

Your name is Deneve, and you have been buried alive.

They have cut you in half, but it did not hurt nearly as much as biting down on your hand to stop from screaming as your sister's blood lapped at your feet. The damn stitches holding you together do nothing to keep you sane. You have not had a chance to scream since. You hold it all inside and wonder when it will all come spilling out.

The other trainees avoid you, murmuring about the stoic one, the unsociable one. You drift through the days without awareness of their presence. You are holding a sword and being taught how to use it; you are sparring another girl. She cries out and drops her own weapon and you never even realized you hit her. The men agree that you have promise. You do not hear them. You do not know what to think or feel or do. You are still under the bed and she is still dying as you stand by and watch.

You hate yourself because you feel guilty, and then you hate yourself all the more because she would not want you to.

You are sick of hearing the word _hatred_. You are sick of it because you know you should feel it, despise the monsters that destroyed everything you love. For your sister's sake, you should hate them, and you should fight for revenge the same way that the others speak of doing, that the men tell you to.

 _You are terrified_. You can feel the blood on your feet, still warm, and hear her screaming as the beast laughed. You remember exactly what it looked like as the thing ripped her open, because even then you could not tear your eyes away. And you hate yourself more than you hate them, more than you can hate anything, because while she screamed your tears were not sadness but terror. You did not think of her dying, her pain, but only wished that the thing would not eat you too. Mourning is for the aftermath. You will never forgive yourself for that.

Your dreams, surprisingly, are pleasant, your only refuge. In your dreams she holds your hand and touches your hair and assures you that you'll be safe. You run with her again. You play the games of your truncated childhood. There is no monster, no blood, and she does not scream.

Then rough hands are shaking you awake, and you go off to receive a new set of bruises.

The men explain that it's a test but don't elaborate, and you're first in line, so you hold out your forearm when they ask you to. They cut without warning, deep, too deep, and you feel as if you're screaming but your lips are still closed tight. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, and then something changes and it doesn't hurt anymore. The skin closes while you watch. Something runs through your head like fire, and you feel things you haven't felt since she died. Your vision blurs, your breath comes too fast, and suddenly something is running through every vein and artery. _You smile_ , unaware that your lips pull back to reveal pointed teeth.

One of the men hits you so hard that you sprawl onto the floor, and the shock pulls you back to yourself. You don't understand it, any of it, and for the first time you understand that you are not a person anymore. You are a thing. You are a monster. You are the one who killed her.

"Defensive," one of the men says, and you neither really hear nor comprehend.

That night, when the men have retreated to sleep and there are only a few guards, you curl up in your corner and tear at the sutures. You want to scream, want to make some noise at all, but then someone would hear you, and if they heard you, they would stop you. You pull hard on a stitch and the sound catches in your throat. There is blood on your fingers, but you do not mind it. You dig into the fissure in your skin and rip at it with your nails. You will pull the monster out of you by force.

Then someone else is there, catching your wrists, stopping you from digging any deeper. You still, afraid it's one of the men, afraid you're about to be punished, but it's just a girl, no larger than you. For a foolish instant you imagine it's your sister, but then you realize it's another trainee.

"What are you doing?" She's smiling.

"Leave me alone," you say, and you push her off. She rolls onto the floor beside you, but now that she's watching, you don't feel content to go back to clawing at yourself.

"If you keep it up, you'll probably die," she says.

That gives you pause. Is that what you wanted? You just wanted to go back to how it was. You wanted to take the impurities out with your own two hands. You want to see your sister again. But surely you don't want to die, not when you crouched terrified under the bed because of that very possibility.

"Why do you care?" you finally manage.

"I guess I don't, really." She shrugs. "I just thought you might have a reason. You never talk, so I thought your head must be really busy. Or empty."

You sit up. The blood is seeping through the thin white shirt, but the throbbing has subsided enough that you don't think it'll do any permanent damage. You can last until morning, at least.

"I'm Helen," she says. She's still smiling. It's still annoying. But she's the first person to initiate a conversation with you since you came here. How long has it been? Weeks? Months? Surely not years. How long since you hid under the bed and desperately tried not to scream?

"...Deneve," you finally respond.

The next day Helen catches your eye across the chamber as the men yell out commands, and she smiles, and it isn't so annoying. You don't smile, but you incline your head to show that you see her.

It goes on. You never smile back, yet you come to anticipate the little grins, and eventually they make you feel something you never hoped to feel again.

Without putting it directly into words, you think that if you can't live for yourself, you can at least try living for her.


	2. Yuma

Your name is not actually Yuma, but it doesn’t matter.

When the man in black asks your father, his words are a low rumble, consonants and vowels running over each other, and the man doesn’t care enough to ask him to repeat it. You watch from a little ways off, shivering in the snow but not really noticing the cold.

You are old enough to understand things like being the youngest child of too many children in the midst of a harsh winter. You are old enough to understand that the money the man in black gives your father will feed your family for the bitter months to come. You understand that you are being bought and sold while your siblings stand by, probably all just grateful that it was you instead of them.

But you are not old enough to understand why your beloved grandmother, who loved you more than all your siblings, neither protests nor kisses you goodbye nor cries. You will never be old enough to understand that.

You do not cry either. You sit in the back of a wagon with a dozen other girls and you watch your family get smaller and smaller. You want to cry, but you don’t want your siblings to remember you as weak and tearful, so you don’t. Then the path bends into the trees, and they’re all gone forever. You will return, in what feels like a thousand years, and there will be only rubble and skeletons in this place.

There are no blankets. You huddle against the others for heat but you do not talk. The wagon’s wheels creak through the snow and crows call from overhead. By the time you stop and the man in black comes to take stock of you, two of the girls are no longer breathing.

He calls you Yuma and you begin to correct him. Then, with your cheek bruising and blood filling your mouth, you learn that your name _is_  Yuma now. He hits you again for good measure, and now you cry.

They are holding you down and cutting you open. The screaming does not help. The hands on your arms and legs stop you from moving at all. Please, anybody help, please, please make it stop, as the blade digs in deeper and there is something hot being forced into this unnatural incision, burning and burning and though it does nothing you cannot help but scream. The tears are an unending current and your shrieks echo off the walls of the cave. Through a haze of pain and terror you see them  _smiling, laughing at you, mocking your screams,_ and the thought that there exist such cruel people and you have fallen prey to them makes you scream all the harder.

The other trainees all seem bigger and stronger and harder somehow. You cannot stop shaking. You do not know how you ended up here, but you know this is the last place you belong. You feel it inside of you, something alien, something all too big and terrifying to even think about. Why do the other girls look okay? How are they all holding themselves together, when your hands tremble too fiercely to hold a sword?

You pull at your skin in despair, like if maybe you rub it enough it will regain its proper color. You never looked like this. You can see all your veins, deep blue and purple beneath the near-white of your skin, and it is wrong. Your hair is _yellow_ , so strange, so absurd. Your grandmother gave you her name, and her face, and the thinner straight hair to contrast with your sibling’s curls. But it was black, and now there is no pigment left. There is no trace of her in your hair. This is not you. None of this is you. Your body has been bought, and your mind is trapped inside as a casualty.

You try to forget your real name, as you try to forget your real life. It is impossible. You just forget all the hunger and the quarrels and your bullying older siblings, and that little girl’s life seems suddenly so perfect. Anything would, in comparison to this.

Your name is not really Yuma, but you are not yourself anymore anyway.


	3. Cynthia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for rape and emotional manipulation.

Your name is Cynthia, and there is blood everywhere.

It is not yours, not most of it at least, but you are wishing it was. They're going to kill you, the men are, when they all return in the morning and find what you have done. It would have been better to let him do what he wanted to do, to grope at the chance for another miserable day. Now you're as good as dead, surely.

You trusted him.

When the yoma eats your mother, it looks like your uncle. It smiles as it turns on you. Then there is the flash of a sword and a woman with pale hair who takes you by the hand and leads you into the care of a man in black. Neither her hand nor her face is warm, and it scares you when you smile up at her and she does not smile back. Once she is out of sight, you remember neither her face nor her symbol. Years later, you will look at your comrades and wonder which one of them it was, which one took you by the hand and led you to hell.

Why did she have to do that? Why couldn't she have killed the monster and left you there? Starvation and exile would be preferable, surely.

You do not feel as sad as you should. There are too many other things to feel. Your mother, your uncle, your aunt, the cousins, have all become a footnote. There will be time to grieve later, but now is the time to look at the incision in your chest and watch as the skin about it turns pink and putrid.

You should feel sadder, you tell yourself. You have not even cried. If you don't cry, you tell yourself, you deserve this, all of this. You don't cry, so you deserve it.

He approaches you a month after you arrive and offers you a peach. You have learned that rations here are meat and grains and water, and the fruit tastes like heaven and like home on your tongue. You cry. You cry for a peach, but not for your family, and so you deserve it. You do not know how to thank him. He says it is worth it to see you smile (but you did not smile).

Another month. Another. The sword is far too heavy, or maybe you are too weak. It seems all the others are smiling, speaking with each other, forming friendships. You do not understand how they can smile while it hurts.

He brings you fruit when he can, and, once, on a golden day, he brings you a candy of the sort you never had even with your family. It is delicious, but it weighs on you, because you have nothing with which to thank him but your words.

He pulls off the black mask to sit and talk to you. He reminds you of your uncle, what with his whiskers and the wrinkles around his eyes. You do not think about the last time you saw your uncle, your mother's blood dripping from his teeth. You focus only on this man, and his stories, and he makes you feel at home. He tells you about the wife and children he wants to have someday.

"A little girl like you, Cynthia," he says, and hugs you. He smells like iron and blood.

It is seven months after you arrived, and it has not stopped hurting. You do not remember smiling once. The sword is not so heavy anymore, but you still hate it.

It is night, but he comes into the caverns anyway, bringing with him something wrapped in a bundle of cloth. The two of you sit alone in a distant corner, no trainees around; they are all busy resting in preparation for the next day. But you sit with him as he unwraps the bundle and presents you with a little cake. You cannot imagine where he got it, or why he bothered, but you cry again.

It is too big for how much you can eat now, but you force the whole thing down for fear of appearing ungrateful, and then you smile. He says he knows how you can pay him back. You smile, so you deserve it.

It hurts.

He stops bringing you things and starts taking them instead.

It is twelve months after you have arrived.

"Please, I don't want to," you say. You are very tired and very sore, and you cannot look at him. He doesn't smile at you anymore. He doesn't do anything but touch.

"You don't want to?" He grabs you. "Don't you know where you are? You're replaceable. I could kill you and nobody would notice. You should be grateful it's me. The others do it too, you know, and they're much rougher. Do you want me to be rougher, Cynthia?"

"No," you say, but he is holding you down and plunging his fingers into the incision, and you scream.

"'No,'" he repeats, mocking you, and his other hand goes for your throat.

He brought his sword with him. You are not a girl. You are a monster. He is the one not breathing any longer. The sword feels so light, and there is blood everywhere.

You wash yourself clean and hide. In the morning the men in black demand answers, but nobody points the finger at you, and you are so very grateful for that. All of you are punished, but you keep breathing, and that is what is important.

It scares you, almost, how good it feels to kill. You picture every yoma with his face, with your uncle's face, and it is easy to do it. They are monsters, and they deserve it. He was just a man, just flesh and blood, and you killed him and became a monster too.

You realize somewhere along the way that the other girls were always smiling in spite of the pain, and you decide that you will smile because of it.


	4. Tabitha

Your name is Tabitha, and you are one of the lucky ones.

That's what they tell you, anyway, and you believe it because you don't know what else to think. This is luck, when the others around you have lost their worlds. This is luck, that you had no world to lose, that you were just shuffled from one hell to another. The only difference is that you are wearing armor instead of old and ragged clothes, that you are carrying a sword instead of wearing your knuckles down on stone.

You think of them as family because they are all you have. You think of her as your mother, and of her unborn child as your future sibling. It does not matter that her words are never soft and her face is never kind or that her only touches are blows. This is all you have, and so this is love. It is love when her stomach swells and your master presses you against the wall and says you had a new duty while she is pregnant. It is love, _because don't you know, slow little wench, that we don't have to feed you or house you we could turn you out on the streets bandits would be worse yoma would be worse but we take care of you don't we?_

She has twins, and you look at them, tiny and wrinkled and strange but beautiful, and you suppose you looked the same a long long time ago. You cannot imagine. She touches them sweetly and murmurs love, but it does not hurt. This is your family too.

They know (how do they know?), and a man in black appears on the doorstep. Your mistress screams and screams and your master implores them not to take the children. His hands are overflowing with gold, but the man in black is not swayed. Then your master (Father) pushes you forward, and your mistress (Mother) agrees, and the man in black smiles and takes the gold and takes you too.

Oh, you realize, it wasn't love at all.

You cry and cry, absolutely unable to stop yourself, and the man in black laughs incredulously at your tears.

"Must've enjoyed being a slave. Don't you know you're lucky?"

It was luck that you had anything at all resembling a family, and now it is luck that it has been ripped away from you. You have no response for him, so you bury your head in your arms and keep sniffling.

It hurts too badly to scream when they split you open. You bite all the way through your lip and barely notice at all, barely notice as blood runs down your chin and your teeth continue worrying the wound. What is this? What is any of this? You are just a girl, just a slave, a nobody with no family, and yet somehow you have found your way here to a dark cave where men in black and pure white women flit about, ghosts and demons. This is surreal, too unreal; this cannot be _happening._ You will wake up and it will have been a dream; you will wake up and be _somewhere, anywhere_ else.

You wake up, and you are still in a cave, and vicious sutures are holding you together. You feel as if you should be crying, but you cannot feel anything at all. There is only shock and horror. Still this cannot be real. You have known yoma, yes, but always as a vague threat, something on the periphery of your mind. Now the connection is nothing but intimate. You can _feel_ it, the constant presence of something else inside of you. It is in your blood, your head, your heart. Perhaps you will never feel like yourself again. But then, as they have told you time and time again, you are lucky, because your body was never your own anyway.

After four or five weeks, new girls appear. One of them can hardly breathe for her sobs. Your comrades eye her with disdain and move away. Four or five weeks is more than long enough to learn that shows of weakness will get you nothing here. Nobody wants a comrade-in-arms who is too busy sobbing to hold a sword.

You do not leave. You hold her, and she clutches to you as if you are a life preserver. In between sobs you hear the story of her mother morphing into something grotesque and bearing down on the girl with the intent to kill. You feel nothing. You stroke your hair. When you think of mothers, there is only your mistress, and a yawning void before that. You have never had a mother to lose. This is luck.

Later, a long while later, you learn that the girl you cradled became the prey of a yoma during her initiation. There is nobody at all to cry for her.

You learn. You fight. You earn a symbol and a rank. You wait to wake up for real.

Luck, you finally realize, is rising from red-stained snow and not knowing whether you even wanted to survive. There are faces all about you, most of them unfamiliar, and you do not understand why you have been spared. The one who was in charge, whose name you failed to remember, offers you a hand.

Love, you finally realize, is looking around and seeing your six sisters. You had comrades before, but now you have a family. Love is your captain delivering orders with the sureness that you can and will fulfill them. For the first time in however many years it has been, you are not waiting to wake up for real.

Miria is crying. You don't want her to cry. You want to tell her that you really were lucky after all.


End file.
